


the dying of the light, the coming of the dawn

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)/The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-26
Updated: 2011-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Disclaimers:</b> I have played fast and loose with both universes, so consider this an AU for both of 'em. In my head this is set after Revelations for BSG and somewhere in the third season of TWW, but spoilers through everything for both shows, just in case. This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to RDM, David Eick, Sci-Fi, Aaron Sorkin, NBC Universal, and their various subsidiaries/any entity I forgot to name. Title partly from a Dylan Thomas poem, which I also had nothing to do with.</p><p>Thanks to <a href="http://sunshine_queen.livejournal.com/profile">sunshine_queen</a> and <a href="http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile">leiascully</a> for looking this over!</p>
    </blockquote>





	the dying of the light, the coming of the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers:** I have played fast and loose with both universes, so consider this an AU for both of 'em. In my head this is set after Revelations for BSG and somewhere in the third season of TWW, but spoilers through everything for both shows, just in case. This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters  & situations belong to RDM, David Eick, Sci-Fi, Aaron Sorkin, NBC Universal, and their various subsidiaries/any entity I forgot to name. Title partly from a Dylan Thomas poem, which I also had nothing to do with.
> 
> Thanks to [sunshine_queen](http://sunshine_queen.livejournal.com/profile) and [leiascully](http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile) for looking this over!

Sam has developed a violent hatred for Leo's annual Big Block of Cheese Day.

He continues to have nightmares where the extraterrestrial conspiracy people chase him into the Supreme Court building while the Court is in session and he has to answer questions about taxpayer standing from Justice Scalia while wearing nothing but his socks. He hopes this is neither a latent desire nor a reflection on the state of his psyche.

All in vain, he tried to avoid this year's installment by telling Margaret to tell Leo that he absolutely had to be on the Hill that day, which was true, but then CJ had gotten wind of it and complained, and Leo had said that they all had to hang together or hang separately, and had rescheduled Sam's interviews.

Sam is certain that his assignments reflect the rather vindictive spirit of their Chief of Staff. Everything he has heard today has related in some way to aliens, and now it's late and he has officially had it with the tinhat theories and the weather balloons and the people who really seem to believe that The X-Files is an accurate depiction of what really goes on in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover building.

So now he's sitting in his office waiting for his last appointment, one of the representatives of the Galactica contingent: Adama, that's the guy's name. He flips through the notes that Kathy left for him. There's a picture of Adama and his father on the top of the file, the one from the Times, the day after the refugees showed up and the whole world went mad for a few weeks.

Sam's still pretty impressed with the speech he and Toby turned out for President Bartlet when those ships appeared in Earth's orbit. _The world is wide and troubled, and the peoples of Earth have long looked to the stars in awe and wonder, asking if there might be others like us living elsewhere in the cosmos. Today, we have that answer. Their presence should not be a source of fear, but a source of inspiration. It should reaffirm our faith in one another, as it reminds us of the common needs of all peoples: to have a home, to have a place where we are secure, where we live and work and commune with our fellows._

He thinks that he really outdid himself with that one, and he's still lost in reverie when there's a knock on the door, and Kathy says, "Sam? Mr. Adama's here."

He nods once, quickly, and Kathy steps back to wave the guy in. He's shorter than Sam would have expected, if he'd really had any expectations at all beyond a brief meeting with someone who probably wanted something he didn't have the power to give.

"Mr. Adama," Sam says, shaking the man's hand. "I'm Sam Seaborn."

"Please, my name is-- you should-- call me Lee," the guy says, taking a seat. "I do appreciate you taking the time." Lee speaks slowly but decisively, with an accent that Sam's never heard before, and Sam is momentarily reminded that he's meeting with a person who, up until a year ago, had never heard any language currently spoken on Earth. He's impressed.

"My pleasure," Sam tells him, and in spite of the day that he's had, he finds that he actually means it. "What can I do for you?"

Lee reaches into his briefcase and pulls out some note cards, which he promptly drops on the floor. He sighs and bends to pick them up, then smiles at Sam, his expression so earnest that Sam can't help but find all of this endearing, even if it's the only thing between him and a cold beer. "Do you-- do you mind? I still have trouble, thinking... thinking of the right word." Lee frowns then, a slight crease appearing between his eyebrows as he does, and he grumbles a short stream of what Sam is certain is a very eloquent sentence in Lee's language, a sentence which is no doubt peppered with an abundance of expletives.

Sam realizes that he's staring, but Lee doesn't seem to have noticed. He wonders what he would do, how he would feel, if all of his precious words were suddenly worthless, and he experiences a strange moment of something that tugs a little too much below the belt to be empathy. It's odd, that he wants to comfort this person he doesn't really even know, and by way of distraction he throws himself back into the conversation, hoping that Lee hasn't mistaken his awkward silence for antipathy.

"No, no, by all means," Sam says, smiling and waving his hands at the cards. "I tried to learn French once. To impress a girl. It was a disaster."

Lee frowns again, and for a moment Sam considers asking if he wants Kathy to chase down an interpreter, because even at this late hour there's got to be a...Cylon, that's what they're called, someone who can translate their pretty phrases into a common understanding, but he dismisses the thought before it reaches his lips, afraid it might be taken as an insult, to say nothing of his quiet desire to keep Lee to himself, a desire, he realizes now, that he might as well just acknowledge, because it doesn't seem to be disappearing the way he'd hoped.

"I understood," Lee says, breaking into Sam's thoughts. "The joke. France. I-- someone I know went there. A...friend."

Sam opens his mouth to recommend a hotel and a restaurant and any other number of things that someone might do or see in France, but he stops, because the look on Lee's face is both heartbreaking and unmistakable, and Sam understands, just in time, that Lee isn't talking about a friend, not really, and that some things are better left unsaid in any language. He does the only thing he thinks is appropriate: he changes the subject.

"What can I do for you?" Sam asks, grateful that Lee probably didn't catch the unfortunate and unintentional double meaning in that question.

"You can ask the President to support this law," Lee says, and drops more of his note cards. " _Frak_. Er-- excuse me. This...amendment, I mean," he corrects. He pulls a file from his briefcase and hands it to Sam.

It's a bold amendment, to say the least, and Sam _almost_ manages to keep the incredulity out of his voice when he asks, "You want us to push for an amendment to the United States Constitution?"

"That is step one," Lee says, shrugging. "Keep reading."

"And the UN Charter?" Sam puts the papers down. This has to be a joke. A handsome, well-muscled joke with a mellifluous speaking voice, but a joke nonetheless. "Mr. Adama-- Lee---"

"I sound like a child to you, I know that I do," Lee interrupts, his voice smooth, even with all his awkward syntax, "but I am very serious. This law. This law is so important to us. And we think... _I_ think it is important to you, too. Equality. _You_ said that was important. When we arrived here. Did you not?" Lee blinks and checks his note cards, then looks back at Sam. "The...the common needs of all peoples, for love, for security. That we are... equal to each other, in those common needs. You wrote that, Mr. Seaborn. I am asking you now to make it be more than just... a collection of pretty words."

"I-- yes," Sam says, now thinking how terrifically unfair it is that his own words are being used against him. He's got to hand it to whomever Lee's working for-- they sent the right guy to talk to him about this. He's concerned, because the more he thinks about it, the more he stares at the amendment in front of him-- an amendment which needs some tweaking, because it could be so much more eloquently said, and he's just the one to do that, if he does say so himself-- it does actually sound like a good idea, and he doesn't know how to feel about this, he doesn't know if he thinks it's a good idea because it's a truth that resonates with him after years of successful political socialization, because he bought the party line about the colorblind Constitution, or because it's being delivered to him by this beautiful person with a perfect jawline and serious eyes that have seen more than their share of desolation and despair. He has a terrible feeling that it's the latter reason, and an even more terrible feeling that he doesn't care.

"We were looking for a new life, a better life," Lee continues, and Sam can tell from the way he's talking that these are prepared remarks, but they're so well-delivered that he doesn't even mind. "We had given up hope. Then we found Earth, we found something I could not believe existed. And we found people, we found you. You promised to... you promised that our people who stayed here would have the...benefit of your laws, of equal..." Lee frowns and makes a frustrated gesture in the air.

"Equal protection," Sam murmurs, and Lee nods. "Equal protection under the law."

"We don't have it," Lee says firmly. "Our people, the people who were allowed to settle, they need jobs. They need homes, education, medical care. They work hard. They are good soldiers, good doctors, good lawyers, good teachers, good _people_ , but here, sometimes, it seems that we have fewer opportunities than we did when we were running for our lives. And if your Constitution will not protect us as it is, we must ask for something new."

There's a part of Sam that wants to stand and clap, hearing that, and he has to smile, because he's said and written an unquantifiable number of sentences imbued with that same sentiment. Certainly there's no doubting the force of Lee's conviction, but he can't go to the President with arguments that are not strongly rooted in facts, no matter how passionately he may feel about them, so he picks up a pen, frowns thoughtfully, and says, "The people who were allowed to settle?"

Lee presses his lips into a firm line. "I assure you that I understand my...accusations," he says, sneaking another peek at his note cards, "might seem to you crazy, but I am speaking the truth: some of the...people who arrived with us have been taken, your military has..." Lee sighs deeply and runs a hand through his hair. "Sorry," he says, and nods towards the papers that he put on Sam's desk. "It may be easier for you to read what I have there."

"You're saying we're detaining Cylons at Gitmo-- a US military base," Sam says, eyes wide as he reads Lee's papers. "That's... that's one hell of an allegation, Mr. Adama."

"There are pictures," Lee offers, pulling another file from his briefcase. "And please, my name is Lee. My...grandfather was Mr. Adama."

"What about your father?" Sam asks, without thinking. It is only when he notices Lee's reaction to his question, the heavy sigh and the shadow that crosses his face, that Sam remembers Kathy's notes: Lee's father, the commanding officer of the Fleet, had died in his sleep last month, an apparently not unexpected reaction after the loss of the former President, Laura Roslin, to cancer in the weeks immediately following their arrival on Earth.

"He was always the Old Man," Lee says, looking away.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Sam says. He feels like an ass, and he hopes that his apology adequately conveyed his guilt at having committed such a verbal faux pas. He turns his attention to the pictures Lee has given him, studying them intently in an effort to allow Lee a moment to compose himself.

Lee clears his throat and gestures toward the photo Sam is holding. The images are grainy, but Sam recognizes the people in the prison cells as Cylons. He remembers the representatives of all the models from their brief visit to the White House a year ago, and he wonders how long it took for things to deteriorate into what he's seeing in these pictures.

"That is proof," Lee says. "Your government is doing this, and under your laws, we have no...no remedies."

"I hear what you're saying, and I don't mean to downplay the significance of this," Sam says, tapping the photos, "and I'm not saying that I won't try to help you, but I have to ask: you were at war with these people, you personally trained to kill them, you were a soldier. After all that you've done to each other, why are you fighting for their rights?"

Lee pauses for so long before replying that Sam considers dropping the subject altogether, but just as he's ready to stand and shake Lee's hand and try to figure out if any of this is true, Lee starts to speak. "What else can I do? What would you do? They are people. There was a time when I did not believe that. There was a time when they did not believe that, about humans. But the words that you wrote, when we came here, they were true. Our goals... the goals of the Cylons... they are the same, the same as yours. How can I say that those words are true and then do nothing?"

For the second time during this conversation, Sam finds himself fighting the urge to stand and cheer. He manages to stay seated, though, and pauses long enough to make a mental note to ask Toby to find this guy a job, then finally stands and offers Lee his hand. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he says, and Lee nods.

"Thank you for taking the time," Lee answers, collecting his notecards and tucking them back into his briefcase. "I am sorry, but I need to ask you, what will you do?"

"I'll look into it," Sam promises, and Lee gives him a look that clearly says he has heard this before. "I don't know who you may have spoken to before, but I give you my word. I'll look into it."

There's not much to say after that. Lee leaves the copy of the proposed amendment with Sam before he goes. He shakes Sam's hand, his grip firm but not unpleasantly so, and Sam stares into his eyes a little longer than he intends to and almost forgets to ask for Lee's contact information. "I'll look into it," he repeats, as Lee turns to go, and Lee just smiles sadly and says, "Thank you."

Sam does look into it. He is dismayed by what he finds: Cylons detained, not just at Guantanamo Bay, but in New York, outside the District. He scours the US Code, goes back over his notes from law school, hoping that there's a legal remedy somewhere that doesn't require the amendments Lee wants to propose, but he finds nothing, just hints that for all the administration's political posturing, the Cylons might not be considered people within the meaning of Constitution, and even more worrisome, a recent Supreme Court ruling that would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for any of them to have their day in court. Night after night, he stays later and later, looking into it, reading security files, harassing Nancy and Fitz, harassing Leo and Josh, harassing Mike Kaspar, reading more files, until finally he's so exhausted at the end of every day that he takes up sleeping on Toby's couch after everyone else has gone home. He's not sure that Toby knows anything about it until he comes back after lunch one day to find a bottle of Jack Daniels and a couple of stickballs on his desk. Leave it to Toby, he thinks, to find a way to say, "I'm here if you want to talk about it," without actually saying a word. He plants himself in front of Toby's desk later that evening and explains the whole situation, or at least, as much of the situation as he feels is really pertinent. He leaves out the parts that involve this infatuation he seems to have with Lee Adama and sticks to the salient points.

"We can't amend the UN Charter," Toby tells him, making that incredulous face that he makes when someone asks him to do something that he thinks is so stupid on its face that it lacks the need to be verbally eviscerated.

"I know," Sam sighs.

"We can't really, ha, amend the Constitution, either," Toby continues.

"I _know_!" Sam shouts, a little more forcefully than he had intended, and he hangs his head, avoiding Toby's eyes.

"The poem doesn't say, 'Bring us your tired, your poor, your aliens,'" Toby jibes, but he says it softly, which gives Sam some small hope. Sam has learned, over the years, to listen for that subtle shift in tone that means that Toby has started taking something seriously. "So. What do you want to do?"

"Anything would be better than this," Sam says plaintively. He runs a hand through his hair. "We said they could stay here, but what good did it do? They can't find work, the few that seem to have more or less integrated into society have gone completely under the radar, and we're treating people like they're science experiments. We overturned Korematsu, dammit. The need isn't great, the time isn't short, and this _isn't right_ , this isn't how it's supposed to be, and no one will help them, no one's looking into it but me, there's nothing in the news, it's all files I'm not even cleared to see. I know they can't vote, but that doesn't mean they're not people, and dismissing them because we don't pick up their votes in the next election isn't something I can do and still sleep at night. This isn't what the law is supposed to do, it's supposed to help people, not ignore them. That's not justice. Not to me."

"We can't go to the President without something more than that," Toby reminds him gently, and then, with a sigh, he leans back in his chair and rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. "Let me see what you've got."

Sam shuffles his feet together, feeling very much like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "On what?"

"You've been writing," Toby says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Sam's office. "Feverishly, by all accounts, so let's have it, what have you written, I need to see it if you want my help, and I need to see it anyway, since I think I'm still your boss."

"I'll get it," Sam says, dashing back to his office, suddenly glad that he'd steered clear of the temptation of the unopened bottle of whiskey. "It's a law, not a Constitutional amendment," he says, handing it over.

"Good to know you haven't completely lost your mind," Toby mutters, taking the papers Sam offers. "I'll look it over, I'll make some notes, but you need to go home."

"But--"

"If you are going to refuse to sleep, I'm going to refuse to look at this. Don't argue with me. My couch is off-limits to you for the foreseeable future, barring some kind of national emergency! You've got to come back to Earth, Sam, you have work to do that isn't this, or I'm going to have to find someone else to do it, and if you're not working here, you've got about as much of a chance at helping these people as I have at being the next President, so go home and come back tomorrow with your head in the game."

"Okay," Sam agrees, realizing that it's probably better if he doesn't argue. He turns to go, then stops and faces Toby again. "Wait, would you even want to be President?"

"Are you kidding? Go home," Toby orders, but he doesn't look angry, just mildly disgruntled, which as far as Sam is concerned is Toby's default state of being.

It's not until he's home and catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror that he realizes why Toby was so adamant about sending him home. He hasn't shaved in days, his shirt is wrinkled, and his eyes are alight with that manic energy that only comes from lack of sleep. He does not look like the Deputy Communications Director for the White House, he looks like a first-year law student during finals week, someone he never resembled even when he _was_ a first-year law student during finals week. He had intended to continue to work, even at home, but after he sees how haggard he looks, he changes his mind. He wakes up the next morning feeling better than he has in weeks. He stops by a bakery on the way into work, buys the biggest pie that they have, and leaves it on Toby's desk after Toby leaves for a meeting on the Hill.

He goes back to his normal life for about a week, only working on the Galactica situation when he has done everything else. Then one sunny afternoon, just as he's about to leave for lunch, Ginger brings him a phone message: Lee has been arrested. They can't tell him anything more, but he imagines it will turn out to be something ridiculous, like driving while being extraterrestrial, which is, in fact what it turns out to be, in the end, and Sam curses under his breath about Fourth Amendment rights and yells for a long time in Toby's general direction about how they can't really be rights unless they create a corresponding obligation on the part of the government to either forbear or perform, and how they do neither now that the Supreme Court has retreated wholesale from the protections of the Warren Court years. Toby tosses him a stickball and tells him to go work it out.

Sam makes more phone calls in the next few hours than he thinks he's made in the last month. It's a stupid charge and they can't make it stick, so they release Lee and make perfunctory apologies, but it's a travesty of justice, a mockery of everything he believes in. For Sam, this means war.

He still works diligently on his actual work, but he obsesses over the Galactica project whenever he has a free minute, which is mostly when he should be sleeping. He knows that he's gone completely over to the side of the funnel people, but he can't stop, even though he's pretty sure that Ed and Larry have taken to calling him Spooky Sam Seaborn, sometimes even _sotto voce_ while he's in the room, and it's frustrating, but he keeps his head down and says nothing and tries not to let it get to him, even though there are days when he wants to sit them down and make them read the reports he's reading and not let them out of the Roosevelt Room until they finally understand the _why_ of it all. This keeps up for about a week, until he walks past Toby's office one day to find the door closed and the blinds drawn, with the faint sounds of shouting drifting through. About half an hour later, Ed and Larry slink out, followed by Josh, Toby, and CJ. He's too busy to ask, but after that he doesn't hear any more snickering from the junior staff, and Ed and Larry give him a wide berth for the next few days.

He keeps Lee updated, even when he has nothing new to report. Sometimes he meets Lee for dinner, sometimes a drink. It's not that he has the spare time, not anymore, but he tells himself that talking to Lee is as good as working on the legislation for his people, and besides, he enjoys Lee's company. He thinks, as the weeks drag on, that Lee enjoys his. Sam learns a few choice words in Lee's language, and Lee flavors their conversations with new idioms he's learned, some appropriate, some not. Sam tells him that whomever is telling him that "like a weasel through cream," is an actual phrase is lying to him, and Lee just grins and says, "I know, I made it up."

Sam introduces Lee to Monday night football and poker; Lee takes Sam through the finer points of pyramid and triad. They work on bluffing in card games, because Lee tells Sam that he couldn't bluff his way out of a paper bag. Sam gives him a high five for appropriate idiom usage, and after that, he shows up for his first Poker Night with the senior staff after a month-long hiatus and bluffs them all out of their money, even Toby, who gives him an appraising look but forks over the cash anyway. Sam uses the winnings to buy Lee a copy of _Bleak House_ and a book of historical essays. Lee brings Sam his copy of his grandfather's book on criminal law in the Twelve Colonies.

"I can't take this," Sam insists, but Lee pushes the book back toward him.

"Just hold onto it. For me," Lee says, and Sam takes it. "I would like it to be translated," he confesses.

"We should work on that," Sam tells him, flipping through pages and pages of unfamiliar words, wondering what it all means. "One of these days."

"When we all have the time," Lee says, like he's quoting, but Sam can't put his finger on the source, and Lee doesn't look like he wants to elaborate.

Sam keeps working. He reads more reports. He has long, hard conversations with Nancy, conversations about Gitmo, about things he shouldn't know, and all of it makes him wish he'd never heard of Galactica. Meanwhile, some of Lee's compatriots try to rally support in the media, visiting the United Nations, doing interviews with the press. Sam is quietly hopeful that the political pressure will give them some kind of breakthrough, give him some kind of reprieve. For awhile, things are looking up, but in a New York minute, everything can change, and he should have known it wouldn't last.

It's early evening when Toby knocks on his door, and that's enough to tell him it's bad. If Toby is actually standing in his office doorway, summoning him with a sad tilt of his head instead of a stickball against the window, Sam knows that it can't be good news. "You should see this," Toby says, and disappears back into his office. Sam follows him without a moment's hesitation or trace of reluctance. CJ rushes in a few moments later.

"Are you seeing this?" she demands, stopping abruptly when she sees Sam. "Do we know anything?"

"You know what we know," Toby says, gesturing at the television, which is currently rolling the same agonizing clip over and over again while the news anchors comment over the sounds of people screaming. Sam can't get the picture out of his head. _Moments ago, two Galactica survivors were gunned down outside the United Nations building_ , someone on the television intones, and then they roll the clip again. Sam remembers what it was like after Rosslyn, with the same horrible clip looping in the background while various commentators made wild speculations about the safety of the President and the White House staff. This new horror is no better for all that he has not just been in the middle of it.

"God," CJ whispers, and they all flinch at the terrible familiar sound of gunfire that blares from television. "Has anyone taken credit for it?"

"Do we usually?" Sam asks, the words as bitter on his tongue as the sentiment behind them. "You tell me, CJ, you're the one who loves to sing the praises of the CIA. Tell me, what's this song and dance called?"

"I think it's called, 'Sam Seaborn is out of line,'" CJ snaps.

"Toby, I've got fifty bucks on CJ," Josh says from the doorway, and the tension doesn't break, but it eases enough for Sam to realize that friendly fire isn't going to get him anywhere.

"I'm sorry, CJ," Sam says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I...I'm over my limit, with this stuff."

Toby mutes the television, looks over at Sam, sighs, and leans on the edge of his desk. "Sam. I'm tired of asking you this, but someone has to, so how long has it been since you had some sleep?" He doesn't wait for a reply, he just sighs again and says, "Go home, Sam."

"You're benching me? Now?"

"Nobody's benching you," Josh breaks in, but Toby's silence says more than enough.

"Fine," Sam says, one last anguished glance at the television. _Saul and Ellen Tigh killed leaving the UN_ , reads the ticker, and Sam closes his eyes. "Fine."

He wants to storm out; he wants to make a scene. He doesn't. He goes to his office and gets his coat, trying not to listen to the quiet conversation taking place next door.

"We're not addressing the possibility that he might be right?" Josh is saying. Sam doesn't hear what Toby grumbles in response, but he can guess that it's something along the lines of, "What does it matter, we can't say that anyway," and though Sam knows that the sentiment is true, its veracity doesn't make it any more palatable.

He calls Lee from the car. He doesn't know what to say, so he just says, "I'm sorry; I heard. Let me buy you a drink."

He meets Lee at a bar in Georgetown. It's quieter than he expected, with fewer college students and more cigarette smoke. Lee is sitting in the corner, tie already loosened, nursing a beer. Sam orders another round and brings it over. They say nothing for awhile, just sit and drink in silence.

"Thank you for being here," Lee says finally, halfway through his second beer.

"Should you be here?" Sam asks, aware that there's an overprotective edge to his voice, but unable to shake it. "You should leave the country. You should go... anywhere. I'll help," he offers, almost pleading.

"You tried. You did what you could do," Lee tells him. He reaches over and grips Sam's shoulder, a gesture that Sam would find comforting if it weren't for the odd feeling that he'd rather Lee's hands be anywhere but resting solely on his shoulders. He swallows another sip of beer and hangs his head.

"It wasn't enough," Sam murmurs.

Lee mutters something that Sam doesn't understand, then sighs, signals for another beer, and says softly, "It never is."

They're both well past drunk when they stumble out of the bar and head for Lee's apartment. There are minutes when Sam can barely remember why they were drinking at all, and Lee's so inebriated that half the time he's not speaking in English anymore, leaving Sam to extrapolate meaning as best he can from words he doesn't recognize. But when Lee turns and kisses him, that's something Sam understands without fear of anything being lost in translation. The language of need is one that they both speak fluently, effortlessly substituting sighs for adjectives, hands for verbs.

 _Fuck_ , Sam thinks idly, his body pressed against Lee's, _is a transitive verb_ , but by that point their clothes are scattered all over Lee's tiny apartment and the only direct object Sam has to worry about is getting harder to ignore. Sam's never done this with another guy before, not unless he counts those interesting moments in the backs of buses on innumerable debate trips in high school, but he's not counting those moments, because that never felt like this does, and this feels better than anything else in his life right now. He gives in to it, determined to have no regrets.

He gets a page from the office at three in the morning. He considers ignoring it, curling up against Lee's warm body, and waiting until morning to book them both one-way plane tickets to someplace far outside the jurisdiction of the United States. Sam stares at the display on his pager and thinks about how nice Spain is at this time of year, with beaches and museums and cities big enough for both of them to get lost in. He knows he shouldn't be entertaining these ideas when he doesn't even know if it something Lee would want, a life with him, but he figures that a life of relative freedom is better than no life at all, and he's more and more certain, lately, that if Lee stays in the States it will all end badly.

Sam's pager beeps insistently. Next to him, Lee stirs in his sleep. "You should answer," Lee mumbles, peering up at Sam. "They will only keep calling."

"I don't really feel like talking to them," Sam says, turning the pager over and over in his hands.

"You would not make," Lee says, yawning and stretching, the motion of his body so fluid that it's almost obscene, "a very good soldier in the Colonial Fleet, to ignore orders, _Deputy Communications Director_ Seaborn."

"I think I take orders quite well, actually," Sam reminds him, and Lee laughs. The playful side of Lee Adama is one that he has not really seen before. He likes it, and it's making the decision to get out of bed even more difficult than before.

"That is very true," Lee says, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I am serious, though. You should answer."

"I know," Sam sighs, and reaches for his phone.

It's a crisis-- it's always a crisis, at three in the morning-- and he makes his apologies to Lee while he hastily pulls on his clothes.

"I'll come back," Sam promises, tugging on his socks and rummaging around for his shoes. "I mean, if you'd like."

"I would like," Lee says, with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. Sam kisses him, once, the pressure of his lips on Lee's slow and languorous, and then he's out the door.

The crisis turns out to take up several days of his time. He goes home, collapses into bed, but just before sleep claims him, the phone rings. It's Lee.

He answers, but there's nothing but static, then a half-muffled shout that might or might not have been his name. "Lee?" There is no reply.

Earlier, after they'd wrapped up this latest snafu, he'd have thought he couldn't possibly have moved, but he's running now. He's running out the door, to his car, up the stairs to Lee's tiny apartment, but it's empty, and there's no one to say where he might have gone: the neighbors don't answer, or if they do, they're unwilling to talk about it. He calls his contacts at the FBI, but Kaspar can tell him nothing. Lee's phone is suddenly not a working number. He goes everywhere he can think to go, everywhere he thinks Lee might be, but there's nothing.

When he finally gets home, it's early morning, and he picks up the phone, dials the first number he thinks of. "He's gone," Sam says, a simple yet viciously efficient phrase. He hangs up. An hour later, the doorbell rings, and Sam makes his way to the door on the only hope he has left, but it's only Toby, Toby who shrugs apologetically, like he knows what Sam was hoping for, like he knows that there was no point in hoping. Sam doesn't even bother to tell him to come in, just shuffles back to the kitchen table and lets Toby decide if he's welcome or not. Whatever Toby thinks, he stays.

Sam doesn't know why it's Toby he called. If he were to call anyone from the office, he feels like it should have been Josh, but maybe after Rosslyn he thinks Josh has enough on his plate, and anyway, Toby's the one who is here, no questions, no comments, just liquor and quiet concern, and half an hour into a wordless conversation Sam realizes exactly why it's Toby he has called. Josh would be talking a mile a minute, Josh would be asking questions, Josh would want to _know everything_ and _do everything_ when there is just nothing to be done but sit here and grieve, something Toby seems to understand intuitively, with the practiced concern of someone who is well accustomed to mourning.

Lee's book is still on his kitchen table where he left it, and after awhile, Toby opens it, frowning.

"It was his grandfather's," Sam says numbly. Toby pushes a glass of whiskey across the table and leafs through the book, taking in the pages of unfamiliar characters. "He was a lawyer," Sam continues.

"What's it say?"

Sam's not sure if Toby's actually interested or just pleased that Sam feels like talking, but he answers anyway. "Criminal law. The title translates roughly as 'Law & Mind. Psychology of criminal practice.' I wish-- I wish I could read it." He gulps down the whiskey in his glass, welcoming the slow burn, anything to distract him from the pain of loss. "He was working on a translation. I have his notes."

This time, Toby doesn't reply, he just refills their glasses.

"I got too close to this one," Sam whispers, the closest he's ever come to acknowledging the love that he had come to have for Lee, for this person who reminded him so much of himself. He knows that Toby's not here to hear a confession, but he doesn't know what else to do. "What do I do now?"

"Drink," Toby says automatically, like it's the most obvious solution.

Sam shakes his head, but he reaches for the liquor bottle anyway. "There has to be _something_."

"Write it down," Toby suggests, and for some reason, the idea of doing that is more than Sam can handle.

"Who the hell would I send it to?" Sam bites out, the bitterness he feels at his failure and the loss of everything he thought was true finally too overwhelming to contain any longer. He hates that he's taking it out on the one person who tried to help, but Toby's the only person who is _here_ , so he'll have to do. "Who would I send it to," Sam repeats, but he can't keep his voice steady, and the whiskey's not stopping the tears. This has to rank as one of the most embarrassing moments of his entire life, because he can't cry in front of _Toby_ , of all people, it shouldn't even be an option, but Lee is gone and Sam is here and the ideals he has built his world around are crumbling and everything is a source of pain. It hurts to breathe, to think, it hurts to sit here and do nothing, which is what he feels that he's been doing all along. He realizes that he has nothing to say anymore. His words, the only thing he had in his arsenal to fight this battle, were as ineffectual as a third-party vote in a presidential election, and now he feels like he's got absolutely nothing but empty air.

"There's nothing about this that doesn't stink," Toby says, and Sam just stares at him, notices the odd light coming through the window. The sun is starting to set, he realizes. Sam wonders how long they've been sitting here in the silence, how long Toby's been waiting for words that never came. He forgets, sometimes, like he supposes they all do, how much Toby actually cares about them, and for the moment, he thinks that maybe if he can just hang onto it, that little bit of irascible compassion will see him through to tomorrow. Toby's frowning at him, and he tries to pay attention. "Just keep breathing. That's the hardest thing you have to do right now. Nothing about this that doesn't..." Toby stop talking, shaking his head, and pours Sam another glass of whiskey to replace one he doesn't even remember drinking. "Is there anybody you want me to call?"

"No," Sam says, rubbing his face. "I...I'll be back at work on Monday. You don't have to stay. I'll be fine. I'll be fine," he repeats, as though it might be true. Toby nods, but he doesn't leave, just resumes his silent vigil here with Sam, watching the dying light of the sun filtering in through the windows.

 _Epilogue_

Sam leaves politics eventually. He finishes out the term with the Bartlet administration, then goes to California, but everyone can tell that his heart's not in it anymore. Sam's heart is not open for business any longer.

A year later, maybe more, someone on one of the news networks does a "Where are They Now" special, profiling the happy lives of some of Galactica's survivors. Sam checks the calendar three times just to be sure that the thing is, in fact, airing on _that day_ , then he proceeds to get quietly drunk alone in his apartment, Lee's copy of Law & Mind on the coffee table in front of him, opened to pages filled with words he will never read. Toby calls halfway through, but he lets it go to voicemail. The next day he picks up a notebook and writes the first full sentence he's written since it all fell apart, and he considers that a small victory. He keeps writing. He writes until his fingers are sore from holding the pen and his handwriting is cramped and angry on the page, then he takes a break and calls Toby and says, "I'm writing again." Toby's in the middle of something, so they keep it short, and Toby just says, "Good," but Sam can hear the smile in his voice. Another victory.

He writes books; he writes articles. None of it is particularly sensational, but that's fine with Sam. He's had his time in the spotlight, and he feels like it earned him nothing but a busted heart and a set of broken ideals that he's never really been able to put back together again. He writes fiction, a love story loosely based on actual events, and it turns out to be the Next Best Thing. He uses a pen name and doesn't tell anyone, even after it hits the Times Bestseller list. He has lunch in New York with Josh and Toby; they walk past a bookstore and Josh says, "Wait, I've gotta duck in here for a second, Donna wanted a copy of this book." It turns out to be his, but Josh babbles on about it, oblivious, and Sam sinks back into the comfort of anonymity for awhile until Josh has to take a phone call and Toby says simply, "It's a good book, Sam."

He meets someone, eventually. Life goes on, or at least it gives every outward appearance of doing so. He marries on a cool day in January. It's not a big ceremony, just the two of them and a few close friends. The kiss at the end is chaste but tender; the speeches at the reception are predictably eloquent. His spouse cries, just a little. They hold hands and drink champagne and listen to their friends tell them why they're perfect for each other. CJ leaves Danny to his own devices and does The Jackal, and for a few wonderful minutes Sam's universe seems to realign itself, to spin backwards to a time when everything was right, when he still believed that liberty and justice for all could be the order of the day, that truth could be universally self-evident. Toby comes to stand next to him on the edge of the dance floor, a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other.

"Thanks," Sam says, "For the speech."

"Josh gave the speech," Toby replies, blowing smoke rings into the night air. Sam eyes him for a minute, wondering if he'll crack, but Toby has always had an impressive poker face.

"Josh didn't write that," Sam says finally, because poker face or no, if there's one thing he can always recognize, it's Toby's writing, its unparalleled elegance apparent even through Josh's cavalier delivery.

"No," Toby admits, doing his best to hide a smile behind his hand as he takes a drink. "I suppose he didn't."

"I've never thanked you."

"Why would you? And for what? If you mean the thing," Toby says dismissively, gesturing in the general direction of the other wedding guests, "don't mention it, it was a paragraph, I wrote it in the car on the way over, what Josh had was something a twelve-year old would say. An intelligent twelve-year old, but the criticism stands, so--"

"You're a good friend," Sam insists, cutting into whatever other reasons Toby will surely come up with to downplay any further allegations of care or concern that he might have had for his fellow human beings in general or for Sam in particular. "And you always have been."

"What is this, this isn't some kind of holiday special, Sam," Toby says gruffly. He looks profoundly irritated that Sam would think to thank him, but Sam is used to this curmudgeonly facade by now, and he just smiles and shakes his head. Toby rolls his eyes. "Look, you just got married. Why are you standing here with me? Go enjoy this."

"Okay, okay," Sam replies, laughing. "But..." His thought trails off, unfinished. He's unable to find the words to voice the question he wants to ask, or maybe, even after all this time, he lacks the courage to ask it.

"You were good at this once," Toby says, his voice quietly encouraging in spite of all his previous attempts to pretend that he's not really ever been anyone's friend. "You can be good at it again."

"It isn't the same," Sam admits.

"No, but it was never going to be the same."

"I can do this," Sam says, surprised to find that he's actually entertaining the possibility. He stares out across the dance floor, where it seems that a moderately intoxicated Josh is attempting to breakdance. "Someone should really stop him before he hurts himself," Sam observes, scanning the pavilion for Donna. "I'm gonna join them. You coming?" he asks, looking back at Toby.

"Not right now," Toby says, holding up his cigar. "I'm gonna finish this and watch the rest of you make fools of yourselves out there. But you know where I am," he adds, tilting his head slightly, "if you need me."

"Thank you," Sam says quietly, and goes to join the others.  



End file.
